A Potluck Song (To celebrate Ka Tai and Rebecca's arrival in Toronto after debarking from a cargo ship in Trinidad, Port of Spain.)

lunch time munching the leftover
I'm multi-tasking checking another guest arriving tomorrow
friends thank you for your lovely cooking my mouthful
of wind-dried tomatoes
not forgetting kimchi pancakes from Yosh
I take you all who were here at Gladstone 50 last night
as vegetarians:) so the five-spiced duck Kai made
should suffice our stomach tonight
(where have all the good squids gone, Tomio?)
Vik your potato apple salad is as vicious as your food jokes
marinated eggs, moon cake with single yoke,
Hami melon, red wine and sake
all you green salad all you cumin rice
intoxicated
drowned

in Stella's singing
one day when we were young

let's stuff the night into my transparent belly
let's put me out to sea
let's imagine the face of the person
to him I will say
I am a bottle
I am a hundred years old
I carry with me a poem
and seafaring stories
and a hot hot fever
for my kindreds' return